1596 Live A Little.

Wes is a classic example of someone who can be wrong and right at the same time.

The Teen never gets whatever slimes she uses to clean herself off of the floor of the tub when she’s done showering. I damn near killed myself from slipping on it more than once, so I finally ordered some grip tape to put on the floor of the tub. I don’t really like having something there, but better that than ending up paralyzed at the bottom of the damn thing, slowly expiring.
I’ve never shopped for the stuff, so I didn’t know what to call it to look it up. There isn’t one naming convention. I call it grip tape because it reminds me of the stuff you put on skateboards. The stuff I got is called safety walk tub and shower tread… Which makes sense, but its a bit wordy. In any case, it’s clear strips you cut yourself, so it’s nicer looking than those gaudy flower decals that were popular when I was little.

Every so often I like to scavenge Ebay for really cheap stuff I want or need. The other day I found a listing for a Lego Monster Fighters set that was partially built because it was from an estate sale. It’s not like I’ve never bought stuff from estate sales, but it was really weird because the set was literally half finished. 50% was still in the sealed bags and the rest had been assembled. The person died before completing the project… How sad is that? I actually have unopened tiny sets that I got on clearance. I buy them so I can have something to open and mess with when I feel trapped. If I just dropped dead there would be this little pile of unopened lego sets that I never got to enjoy. I don’t know who owned the set last, but I hope they know that I intend to enjoy it as much as I can for them too. If anything ever happens to me I hope my family has enough sense to give my stuff to people who will enjoy it properly.

The Microsoft Surface does not have a really great way to keep its stylus handy. I may have spoken about it before. It has magnets all over it that can dock with the thing, but it’s so easy to knock it off without noticing. You get a little loop of fabric and plastic with the thing, but the adhesive gives up pretty fast. It’s not quality. The replacement loops are $15 because… assholes? The loop itself is actually pretty solid, so instead of trying to get a new one I went on a quest for a quality adhesive tape I could replace the old stuff with every time it fails. My first purchase was 3M sticky tabs. They worked a little, but they fail after about 3 days depending on how hot the Surface gets and other factors. I decided to find something better after I lost my stylus for an hour in the house when it fell off at random. This time I bought a roll of vinyl tape by Gorilla Glue. It’s strong, outdoor use, mounting tape. So far the fucking loop is stuck on there so hard it doesn’t shift at all. So, mission complete.

I’ve had a lot of tape related issues recently. It’s weird how stuff like that happens all at once sometimes. Whenever I buy something to repair a single thing, and I have some leftover, I get a little obsessed with wanting to fix similar things to use up the remaining stuff. it’s not like tape goes bad, but I just get stuck on the idea of fixing. So I’ve been looking for things to stick to other things. I haven’t found anything else, but at the rate I’m going I may end up taping the dogs together to make some kind of Cerberus…

Wes isn’t really right and wrong at the same time. He’s wrong and wrong at the same time.

“She’s allowed to make bad choices. And you’re allowed to enjoy it.”

As has been said often: The point of ethics is to have a difference between what you -can- do, and what you -should- do. Enjoying another person’s bad choices means to take advantage of them. Most ethics I’ve seen has something to say about taking advantage of other people, and it’s usually this: “Don’t.”

But from what we know of Wes, he’s not much into ethics.

“You always get so focused on one thing, you miss out on life. Fucking live a little.”

This after Reggie (or rather, Maddie) just told him that he was spending time with a furry group and had a good time of it. Oh, and of course Wes doesn’t even know that after the meeting, he asked a woman out for dinner. So Reggie already -is- living life. Just not the same life as Wes. And considering Wes is a rather misogynistic, body-shaming thief; that’s probably a pretty damn good thing.

We’ve definitely seen everything but the theft from him. Thomas has alerted either Mike or Carol to the theft bit, but Wes hasn’t stolen anything yet. Those three random punks have, but not the newly employed, sexist blonde.

Well, Reggie wouldn’t really be taking advantage of her. She’s hitting on him, pretty agressively. And she’s ditzy but not impaired or naive. The “bad choice” is that she’s hitting on a guy that isn’t interested on her, and Reggie is “allowed to enjoy” the attention if he wanted to. It just sounds sleazy because of the way Wes is putting it.

Every so often I end up working with one of those caricatures of a person that act like the stereotypical frat boy style human. You know the type, right? It’s all about personal gratification, and passing an opportunity for sex leaves them baffled (and likely making a gay joke). The first time this ever happened to me, I was stunned. People in cheap comedies aren’t actual people. Except apparently I was wrong. Wes strikes me as one of these people. The kind you suspect watched a bit too much Porky’s or American Pie movies and took them as a guide to life to the point where everything they say is a sexual innuendo or stupidly wacky hi-jinx.

Ironic that in this case all the wrong ended in some actual useful advice (I refuse to classify it as good advice. All advice can be good in the right circumstances. This is better. It’s useful.)

Be very careful Wes. From how this conversation has been going, you’ve already begun poking some of Reggie more recently revealed berserk buttons, body shaming and disrespecting nice women. And it looks like we can possibly add taking advantage of naive people onto that list.

Actually, more in keeping with Reggie’s style, and for once totally appropriate would be to report him for both sexual harassment and creating a hostile work environment. He was making blatant sexual comments to a (possible) customer, and making, obviously, unwanted sexual comments towards a coworker. Granted, at this point, it’d be more of a political move than an actual offence, but Wes totally deserves it. There is no excuse for that kind of behavior, especially at work, and doubly so when out in a public area where customers can overhear.

Agree that one should be conscientious around customers, but coworkers that take offense easily and report others for things said and/or opinions expressed would be my idea of a hostile work environment.

It’s true this could be seen as harassment (though frankly, I think that word get tossed around a bit too much nowadays), but I don’t know if Reggie would turn Wes in. They’ve always been portrayed as pretty much friends, and Reggie strikes me as a guy who will be loyal to his friends (even if it doesn’t seem that way to an outsider.

I agree that it does get tossed around a lot and quite often in a matter that isn’t very legitimate. And personally I think people need to just get a thicker skin and learn to take a joke. But this he I was more looking at it from Reggie’s point of view. He seems to always try to stay within the system. But then again, West is his first minion, and he may prefer to handle it himself, to show his obvious leader potential. We shall see.

I had the same problem with my teen so I took a trip to Home Depot and picked up a can of “Clear Non-Slip Coating for Fiberglass, Acrylic” by a company called Slip Doctors. Just give the bottom/sides of the tub a couple coats and the entire surface becomes like that grip tape stuff without the tendency to peel or grow mold underneath.

Also, there’s some Scotch or 3M brand double sided tape that computer modders use to fasten clear windows in towers and such like that you might be able to use for your stylus and such.(probably best not in the tub).

Reggie understands something Wes does not, just because you can doesn’t mean you should. You can jump off the empire state building but that would be a bad idea. You can eat dessert for all three meals of the day, but that would have some bad consequences. You can be a hipster, but that would be a bad idea. Well you get the point.

Gorilla Glue is unbelievably strong. One of my friends is a mechanic, so he drives these old pieces of crap that he picks up for nothing and keeps alive with TLC until they give up the ghost. One of these cars had its front bumper detached on the left-hand side, so Mark (my friend) took a big length of Gorilla Tape and stuck it back on. The tape part eventually came off from winter weather, but the adhesive stayed, and the bumper was more firmly attached than when the car was made. :D

Wes continues his stint as The Devil On The Shoulder, doling out bad advice and half-truths. Reggie joins him as the Anti-Hero with a chip on his shoulder who is unsure about how to best approach this level of EVIL!

You’d be surprised at how many sets folks abandon partly built sets because they get bored/lose interest or find it ‘too difficult’/fiddly. Such sets tend to be larger and can be a good source of inexpensive (or at least less expensive) parts. Inexpensive parts are good….

If I die and leave a Lego set unfinished, it will be because I literally keeled over mid-build. I pretty much always build my sets in one sitting. (Except for the Detective’s Office, but that thing has more than two thousand pieces. It’s also modular, which lends itself to stepping away and coming back.)

Hm… Maybe it’s just my reading of it but I feel like Wes is ‘trying’ to be a decent friend here. In my mind his thought process is less “Let’s be a dick for the audience” and more “This thing makes me very happy. My friend obviously has issues. He should do the thing that will make him happy”.

In addition the term “Bad idea” seems to be referring to how Reggie thinks of it. I dunno… I like to think of each character as a set of good and bad so maybe I’m trying too hard to read good into Wes.

Wes is a horrible human being. I think the reason Reggie isn’t interested is for the same reason I wouldn’t be. I look for the same things in women that Reggie seems to, personality, intelligence, and a connection. That’s why I don’t do one night stands. Tried it, found it to be disappointing, because no connection was there. It’s kind of the opposite reason I don’t do Friends with benefits. The connection is already there, or we wouldn’t be friends. When we add sex, I can’t help catching feelings and wanting more, which invariably leads to hurt feelings, loss of friendship, etc. It’s just not worth it. After re-reading the comic from the start, I think I’m starting to understand Reggie a little better. I won’t go so far as to say I actually like him, but I’m starting to respect him as a human, as his character growth continues

Also, this comic is truly amazing. I’m reminded of this as I continue re-reading to catch up to the present. The characters are likeable and relatable, the development of them continues to astound me. There are professional writers with best selling books who can’t do proper character development. They are all 3 dimensional and seem like real people, and the story lines are awesome. I don’t read many web comics, or comics in general, I’m more of a book person, but this is a truly amazing series

I am fascinated by the parallels between this conversation and a much earlier one between John and Thomas. John and Wes, both advocating for having casual sex for pleasure alone, Thomas and Reggie, more focused on having a real connection with their partner. This was a more crass interaction, especially on Wes’s part, but I can definitely see where Thomas was coming from when he said he saw himself in Reggie.